Today my Writing Workshop cranked up for the 208-2019 season. The Workshop meets in our dining room at Bedlam Farm. There are nine students in the class this year, most have been my students for five or six years.

The class is free, I’ve never liked to charge money for writing. This class is remarkable,  it has produced five different self-published books of poetry and essays. It was important this year for me to re-emphasize what it is I teach and what we do.

We had one new student, her name is Carolyn and she moved to the country from Seattle. She was educated in British Board Schools and  has never published her  work, she would like to change that. She has a lot of cats.

Writing classes and workshops  often drift into therapy workshops, the line between writing and therapy is often blurred, and people’s reasons for writing often mimic reasons for therapy.

Often through the year, we affirm the centrality of writing in the class, that is why we all are her. I am no therapist, but I have been teaching writing for 22 years. I don’t charge because I believe it is my duty to give something back, as a writer of 26 books.

I am also a firm believer in using new technology – blogs, graphic printers – to bypass the greedy and outdated system of commercial publishing and share our work. People who only write for themselves run the risk of just talking to themselves, it is hard to grow as a writer without feedback.

In our workshop, our feedback is gentle but honest. No nasty or cutting word has ever been spoken in any of my classes, and I am very proud of that.

In the workshop, we spent the first hour talking to each other, listening to each other, supporting each other, that veers close to therapy but it essential to establishing trust and confidence.

My classes have been all female in  recent years, and I find women often struggle to believe their stories are important, or discouraged from telling them to others. The class if about seeking authenticity in writing and confidence in voice and the important of our stories.

The women sitting around the table are remarkable women, more than half the class is using new technologies to get their work out in public and share their beautiful stories.

I like doing this at the farm, it is comfortable and infuses creativity into the farmhouse. Some wonderful stories are hatched her, talked about, revised. Writing is really about voice, vulnerability and honest, and this class is so special we might just keep at it till the end.

Once in a while, Maria joins us, she knows a lot about finding voice and being authentic. It’s nice having dogs wandering around too.